"Is the slide (into becoming a fascist police state) reversible?" This question is part of the...

...last sentence in a Wayne Madsen editorial published today detailing his incredibly disturbing recent encounter with TSA screening personnel at Reagan National Airport.

Well, is it reversible?

And secondly, if so, can it be done working WITHIN the system?

-------------------------------

The Madsen piece:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3287.shtml

---snip---

What followed, was worse than anything I had previously encountered while leaving Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, itself a revolting display of ingratitude to citizens of the country that bankrolls Israel, or the Israeli-run screening process at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport.

First, I was instructed to enter a glass isolation chamber and point out my belongings that were exiting the X-ray machine. Anyone with claustrophobia would really enjoy being placed in such a chamber and have to speak to the screener through small holes in the glass.

I was then led to an area where all my carry-on bags were emptied. I was also forced to empty my pockets of everything. A bevy of screeners then proceeded to go through my wallet examining everything: cash, credit cards, VA medical benefits card, National Press Club card, voter's registration card, and driver's license. Then came an examination of my press credentials and related IDs: Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) card, Society of Professional Journalists card, National Archives research card, Library of Congress card, three press credentials, and membership card in Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO).

In a blatant violation of the First and Fourth Amendments, my reporter's notebooks, containing names of contacts in Houston and around the world were paged through by the screeners. Another screener asked if I minded being probed in "certain private areas." He then asked if I'd like the examination to be conducted in private. I replied, "No, let everyone see this." He then proceeded to examine my groin area. . .

it feeds on itself.

1. Are you feeling okay?

2. Where are you going today?

3. How long will you be there?

4. Why are you going there?

5. What story are you covering/

6. Who do you write for?

7. When did you move to Washington?

8. Where did you live before that?

9. What did you do for a living before?

10. Who was the most famous person you ever met?

11. What was the most famous event you ever covered?

12. What type of things do you write about?

13. What type of politics do you cover?

14. What is your place of birth?

and just reasding it made me angry. My friends all wonder why I won't come over these days. Used to love visiting your country for the music, dancing and just general hanging around - no more. What was I thought was wondeful is now just a truly sad state of affairs. I have a feeling there are many others like me.

...to do, Edward, it seems a shame to reject your friend's invitations as a result of the "truly sad state of affairs" they find themselves in.

Stuck captive of a dying empire here in the States, a nice cheery visit might be just what the doctor ordered -- for you and your friends. There's no requirement to swear allegiance at the border (at least not yet) and there's no telling how much longer relatively free international travel will be permitted -- judging by Mr. Madsen's recent experience, my guess would be not much.

Is gonna get clobbered. It's a trigger.I been messed with the wrong way by bad people too many times to trust anyone in that area. Guess I am not flying commercial than.I don't expect a proto facist asshole to "get it"and have the sensitivity that I have issues with being touched.Fuck them then .I wonder if those richy piggies flying around the hamptons get groped every time they hop a helicopter and FLY somewhere?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/helicopters-and-the-hamptons/

Another trip down fascist lane..A national road check all fotr looking in your car,checking if anything amiss, looking in your stuff ,digging around all in the name of safety..Fuck.

'FROM JUNE 3, 2008, ABOUT 10,000 TRAINED AND CERTIFIED
OFFICERS WILL BLANKET THE ROADWAYS OF NORTH AMERICA TO
PREVENT TRUCK AND BUS ACCIDENTS AND SAVE LIVES. KNOWN AS
ROAD CHECK 2008, FEDERAL, STATE, PROVINCIAL, AND LOCAL
OFFICERS WILL BE CONDUCTING NORTH AMERICAN STANDARD
INSPECTION AROUND THE CLOCK FOR 72 HOURS FROM JUNE 3-5. THE
INSPECTIONS INVOLVE A COMPREHENSIVE 37-STEP PROCEDURE WHICH
INCLUDES ITEMS RELATED TO VEHICLE, DRIVER, AND CARGO
SAFETY.'
http://www.jjkeller.com/resourcecenters/roadcheck/home.htm

what makes them think digging through someones luggage ,book bags or whatever makes things safer??

...we're presently being conditioned to accept the police state. It's being introduced slowly, incrementally, and even politely where there is no resistance.

Normally I post links to Wikiality.com for the funny pictures, etc.

But this time, I'm gonna recommend the http://www.wikiality.com/Naomi_Wolf">Naomi Wolf page.

Beware, it is satire, but we've got all the links, including a youtube interview and a link to a guardian story that lists all 10 of the steps she says dictators/despots use to close an open society, or crush a democratic uprising.

Plus, it's got a picture of her during her interview with Stephen!

Ms. Wolf sauntered into The Eagle's Nest and fought her woman's instinct to pull a Jane Fonda. Her desire for Stephen was apparent by her display of cleavage and leg.

The problem with Wolf is that she's actually what is known as a 'super-milf' and because she's so smoking hot, her communist and downright wrong theories are made to look even more attractive when she says them on TV while flashing some leg and flipping her hair like girls will do.


At the risk of sounding sexist, I must say that Naomi Wolf is one attractive woman.

:applause:

We try to be funny. We also try to have fun.

I mean this is pretty bad, but what about the theory that the President can do whatever he wants? What about surveillance of our phone calls? And so on and so forth.

That said, I believe that we are always going to be on the road to fascism, but that it is reversable.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

It happens dozens, if not hundreds, of times a day in "the land of the free"..

As long as it happens to "someone else"..

I don't think the slide to fascism is reversible, too many people, even here on DU, applaud the police state tactics in certain situations where they think it would never apply to themselves.

...and while Jefferson may have been referring to armed revolt, the revolution I think could be made to work would essentially boil down to massive non-violent non-cooperation with the State.

Yes, they'd make highly visible examples out of some, and that might be enough to scare the masses back into compliance, but what if it wasn't? What if the non-violent non-cooperation on a massive scale persisted indefinitely?

I don't suppose anyone can say for sure how this would shake out, but I believe sustained, well organized, mass non-compliance might be our only chance against this regime, and time is NOT on our side.

uprising would effect each of us individually and our families friends and communities and the nation we would end up as but that can also be said of a revolution with noncompliance as our weapon.

...remedial course we might undertake. I cannot imagine, however, the regime being anything but utterly delighted to see the sprouting of armed revolutionaries (sure to be labeled domestic terrorists) on U.S. soil. In fact, if something of this sort doesn't develop, I wouldn't put it past them to stage it themselves. It would provide the pretext/justification for all the Orwellian nightmare measures they're just dying to put in place -- permanently.

... I especially think some of his misrepresentations of his positions on guns are scary.